I saw pix of the 747. Big, bulky, slow and without an adequate defense it would have been a sitting duck. One sam missile and boom. All done. Besides that much over budget and behind schedule it should be canceled.

Those are really chic gangs.

Well that's just sad. I can see why they scrapped it though now that they have a land based laser capable of doing what that one did. I find it odd though that the article there seems to be flat out lying saying it never worked. It did in fact work and was the basis for the ground based version the military has now. The ground based version was just successfully tested not too long ago as well. Don't see that in the article, most likely so the public will think the Gov is saving some money.

Also true. I wouldn't say the money was totally wasted though since they put the laser technology to good use.

 It sure would be nice if humanity could conjure up something more with our natural resources and intelligence other than how to enhance our capacity to kill.

The main thing that I'm really stoked about with the Railgun isn't the fact that it's a weapon, but, it's where the technology behind it will lead us. Allow me to explain.

Every Single Time man has shot something, be it a rock with a catapult, a arrow with a bow, or a bullet from a gun, EVENTUALLY man has figured out how to travel as fast as the projectile they can shoot. Proof? No problem. I'm doing this by memory without looking stuff up so cut me a little slack if my dates are off.

Before Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947 most upstanding scientists said that man would Never brake the sound barrier. Then we did.

Next is the light speed barrier. Of course we haven't broke that one yet, but, what isn't common knowledge is that we DO know how to do it, which I'll explain, and I'll also explain why even though we may know how, we still can't.

Back in 1994 a physicist named Miguel Alcubierre came up with a valid solution to Einstein's field equations that says it's theoretically possible to propel a craft to speeds faster than the speed of light by literally warping space both in front of and behind a craft causing the craft to move in space-time without it actually moving. The equations behind this are solid and pretty much every other physicist out there stands by them. They do though all also agree there's some major gaps stopping us from putting these equations to work, the number one among those things being POWER. The power it would take to warp space the way the equations show is roughly equal to what a black-hole puts out in a massive gamma/x-ray burst, meaning it's not something we'll be able to do anytime soon. In a 100 years or so though, probably less, we most likely will. Why do I say that? Because when the Wright brothers made their first flight they flew just over a 100 feet. 60 Years Later we were sending man to the moon. That's a shit ton of scientific advancement in just 60 years, even though for some reason it took us 2000 years to get to that point from the time of the ancient Romans.

The important thing there is that we DO know it "could" be done if we could meet the power needs and overcome the other factors like inertia that would turn anything living on the craft into goo, not to mention the massive radiation the power source would most likely put off. Aside from those small things though (lol small) we got faster than light travel down.

Mainly though to make a long winded rant shorter what I'm saying is the technology used in this railgun, put through more study of unified magnetic fields, WILL lead to us figuring out how to manipulate those magnetic fields into doing other things we want, like for standard transportation, maybe even magnetic engines that require almost no fuel, to using magnetic fields to contain actual, real-life, antimatter, that can be used as an exotic power source.

The development of weapons of war in war time has pushed our technology we use today in peace-time. As they say necessity is the mother of all invention, and there's no bigger necessity in the eyes of man than defending himself from his fellow man.

I had a 1912 Lee Enfield 303 rifle..... the reason a rifle goes 'craaak' and a pistol goes 'bang' is the bullet in the rifle breaks the sound barrier....just around 2/3rds of the way down the barrel....there's two noises....detonation and sonic.

The 3 oh won't be the first... and there are older ones than 1912 ...;)

As far as I knew, the laser defense system was accomplished on the ground and then put in the air. Is this not the case? 

I would bet that in 20 or so years they will have a laser small enough to fit on a fighter jet. Scrapping the behemoth model is probably a good idea.

I'm talking about in a vehicle there smartypants

Edit: Technically the sound barrier was broken way before the invention of the gun or gunpowder. The first time a person cracked a whip the sound barrier broke. The whip cracking is actually the tip of the whip breaking the sound barrier.

Honestly I'm not %100 sure which one came first, Sean. I know when they tested knocking a dummy missile out of the sky with the ground based version it was just a few months ago or at the end of last year. I could probably find the article again that talks about it if need be. Since reading that article I assumed the flying version was either working as well or they decided it wasn't needed and easier to do from ground based platforms.

I know the current ground based version works by tracking the target missile and targetting it with a condensed argon laser until the target heats up and explodes.

what is with all the peacey weezey stuff here?

Stop posting on forums, and go uplift some small african nation.

When it comes to awesome weapons, I say 'divert power from the engines, and FIRE. EVERYTHING.'

once again. as sort of mentioned in the op...

Railgun research is one possible solution to cheap/easy orbital launch capibility.  Something we need when we want to spread our beautiful filth to the rest of the solar system, and beyond. 

1. We probably would only be able to fit no more than ten of these beasts- keep in mind that even though we could fit a lot more physically onto a battleship-sized hull (of which we do not currently lay down any more, with no plans to build anything battleship-sized (only carriers sadly)), there's the slight issue of power. If we assume a very optimistic 50% efficiency, then slug energy is about half the energy required to fire ONE shot!

2. I've read a bit about the proposal. The idea is to have Tomahawk cruise missile (conventional HE, non-nuclear warhead) type firepower, for much cheaper, and with superior accuracy.

They make an ointment for that.

I don't know if that was necessary, but I also see nothing wrong with being fascinated by and appreciating the destructive powers humanity has been able to technically unleash while simultaneously being terrified by the thought of its use in actual combat. Sure that money could probably be better spent else where, but as far as what I consider to be stupid government spending is concerned, this is nowhere near the top of the list.

When we get fusion powered carriers up and running the energy concerns won't be. Carriers are probably going to combine with the battleship function in future iterations. Like PC and TV. It just makes sense. I'll have to add this to my bucket list.

how about 1 million rounds per minute ... It's going used as an anti-missile device on ships. Good old Aussie invention.

I fail to see the cool in weaponadvancement. But maybe i am not cool enough for that.

I could, maybe, relate to interesting, tho.

No kidding, Einstein.  You just yet again shoot Yeager's 'accomplishment' in the foot.

Think of me as your auntie... I know how to suck eggs.....;p

Those darn young whippersnappers.

I thought he was talking about a "man" travelling past the said speed?

That'll heat up his britches in a hurry.

Seem that the first living being on earth who have broke the sound barrier was not human :

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/02/science/did-dinosaurs-break-the-sound-barrier.html

 I guess pacifism is a form of mental illness to sociopaths?

Pacifism isn't a mental illness, it's make-believe. Life and human nature isn't so simple and to think that being passive will gain the respect or peace of others is naive. To believe that if I choose to not fight back, the bullys will treat me with the respect I deserve is a joke.  The Armenians met their Turkish rulers abuse with pacifism...

Not every one with a gun is a sociopath.  But having guns, is a huge responsibility. A lot of people speak of the evils of America, or British Empire, but it rarely compares to the evils most of the world's population suffer under their own leaders.  It doesn't compare at all. 

Pacifism and civil-disobedience only works against those people who actually care about human suffering, it does nothing against most people in power, other than making their job easier.  It worked in India and North America, but what about Iran or China?  North Korea?  

And that's my two cents...but I am done clogging this topic.

Smells like politics to me?

I love pacifists!

No really I have a deep respect for the self sacrifice and principles inherent in pacifism. Unfortunately I have never actually met one.

A real pacifist would be against violence at all and not be ok with proxy violence. That's just cowardice. If someone is assaulting you and you call the police to protect you then your are just getting someone else to use violence for you, because you are afraid to do it personally. A real pacifist wouldn't be ok with that. They would take the beating because using violence to stop violence would be wrong in their eyes.

Oh yeah and Railguns are awesome. I have been following their development on Defensetech.org for years. I believe the plan is to put them on destroyers. Just one of these has the range to smash supersonic slugs into any city in North Korea from a safe distance offshore. As others have said they are can also be used to replace rocket fuel in spaceships, which would make space travel much greener. Dumping high density rocketfuel into the high atmosphere is very polluting.